


The Servant of the Moon

by HapaxLegomenon



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spirits, Angst, Challenge: Sports Anime Shipping Olympics | SASO 2015, M/M, Servants, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 07:57:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8004856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HapaxLegomenon/pseuds/HapaxLegomenon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alone and grieving, Yamaguchi watches the moon.</p><p>Re-post from SASO2015 BR5</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Servant of the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> This is a remix of [this SASO 2015 fill.](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/4049.html?thread=845009#cmt845009)

“I miss you, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says, head tipped back to the sky and teardrops trickling in and over his ears. He’s alone – as he always is, now, and it’s been months, but. He still feels like he shouldn’t be alone. Like there should be someone alongside, someone a half-step ahead or behind with stardust hair and firefly eyes and a wicked grin.  
  
“I know you’re gone,” he says, and there’s a wet tickle curving around the back of his ear. “I know you’re gone, and you’re not coming back for me. That’s okay.” A wet giggle. “I wouldn’t expect you to.” A pause, and a quiet sigh. “I really wish you would, though. Sorry, Tsukki.”  
  
A cloud passes in front of the full moon, then, and Yamaguchi sits up with a sniffle, tries and fails to wipe his eyes dry. It’s late – or early, depending, and he should sleep. Not that he has anything to wake up for. He doesn’t know what he’s meant to do, anymore, so he just sleeps during the day, and wanders, and watches the night sky. He’s always been Tsukishima’s companion. His indentured servant, but a friend, for a long time, and then, later. Later.  
  
This, watching the moon from here in the dirt, is the last thing he can give.  
  
Yamaguchi sighs into his arm, curled in his blankets, and watches memories play out in half-starts and dark shapes on the insides of his eyelids.  
  
He doesn’t remember having a family. He supposes he must have had one, once, but he was bought by the Tsukishima family at a young age, too young to remember anything of the parents he must have had or the siblings he might have had, too young to understand anything of the honour he would bring to them, just by being a personal servant to the Family of the Moon. He has no memories of a time before.  
  
His earliest memory is vague, indistinct – impressions. It’s bright, and happy, and he hears Tsukki’s fretful baby noises and his own bubbled laughter. In his mind, it’s the first time they met.  
  
This is how he knows that he has always loved Tsukki. From the very beginning, all the light and joy in his life has come from him.  
  
That was before the world knew how special Tsukki was. Before the world knew, but Yamaguchi has always known. He’s always known that Tsukki was destined for greatness, second son or not, and he knew that he would always be right there. He belonged at Tsukki’s side, always. Forever.  
  
Except it wasn’t forever at all, and Yamaguchi shifts in his blankets. It was supposed to be forever, they were supposed to be together forever, but then, Tsukki had presented as a spirit – as a moon spirit. Everyone had been so proud. His family, especially. They’d known that the potential was there; they weren’t called the Family of the Moon for nothing, after all. But there hadn’t been a new spirit born into the family for hundreds of years. Everyone had been ecstatic when the youngest Tsukishima revealed himself properly.  
  
Everyone except for Yamaguchi, who was the one to sit with Tsukki through the screaming pain and scorching fevers, who was the one who stayed when the inpouring of cosmic energy forced Tsukki to his knees, rocking back and forth with his hands around his head and screeching because it was _too much_ , who was the one to watch helplessly as his fussy, happy, warm friend turned distant and cold and brilliant.  
  
Nobody else saw what Yamaguchi did. Nobody else cared for Tsukki like Yamaguchi did. Nobody loved him like –  
  
“I wish I could have helped you,” Yamaguchi murmurs, blinking red-rimmed eyes open to stare at the moon, trying to look through it for a glimpse of his Tsukki.  
  
“I didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry, Tsukki.”  
  
What could he have done, though? He was a servant. Nobody cared what he had to say; he had no right to any opinions of his own, and god forbid he question the family. He was a servant, he belonged to them and he had to do whatever they asked, without hesitation or disobedience.  
  
When Yamaguchi had argued back, once, that he didn’t belong to _them_ , that he was _Tsukki’s_ and Tsukki needed him to take care him because nobody else was doing it, he’d been hauled outside and beaten for his insolence until he couldn’t stand or speak or remember who he was. So he’d never spoken back to them again. And he’d never told Tsukki.  
  
Tsukki had never minded his opinions. Tsukki had always encouraged him to be open, said that they were friends and friends should be able to say what they wanted to each other. It was one of the many things that Yamaguchi loved about him, that he was blunt and sarcastic and witty and spoke his mind and wanted others to do the same. He’d changed, a little, in the last months and years, become harsher and angrier and less tolerant, but Yamaguchi remembers him. Remembers who he really was.  
  
When the time came, when it was time for him to _transcend_ – it’s a dirty word, disgusting and vile, and Yamaguchi feels it catch in his throat like blood and sit there, dripping – when the time came, Yamaguchi couldn’t be there. He couldn’t. He couldn’t face watching Tsukki die. No matter what the priests said, no matter what the family said, it was death. Murder. They were murdering his Tsukki and he couldn’t do a thing to stop it.  
  
Akiteru had been there – the only person, perhaps, who loved – loves – Tsukki almost as much as Yamaguchi. So Yamaguchi had said his desperate, tearful goodbyes – his Tsukki so far gone at that point that all he’d done was stare impassively and dismiss him with a hand-wave and a “Shut up, Yamaguchi” – and then he and Akiteru had snuck away to hide together, shaking and crying until long after the ceremonial percussion had ceased.  
  
And then, Yamaguchi had run. He’d grabbed the bag he’d hidden in his closet-room and he’d _run_.  
  
And so here he is, now, crying and alone under the light of Tsukki’s moon, but he’s still alive and he supposes that has to count for something.  
  
“Are you proud of me, Tsukki?” he whispers to the air. “I don’t know if you would be.” He’s hungry and dirty and homeless and he has nothing. Even before, when he’d had nothing before, at least he’d had Tsukki. And he forgets, sometimes, that this isn’t just another trip together, that if he laughs and skips over a step he won’t bump up against Tsukki’s shoulder. That when he wakes, gasping, from terrible nightmares, that the nightmares are all true and he can’t slip quietly into Tsukki’s room for comfort.  
  
“I just… I don’t know what to do without you.”  
  
The moon is high, and distant, and cold, and sometimes, when it’s full, just before he blinks, Yamaguchi sees the starshine hair and the silver of glasses and the reluctantly happy smile, but when he opens his eyes again, it’s gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Talk fandom to me on Twitter at [@paxlegomenon](https://twitter.com/paxlegomenon).


End file.
